Doom Patrol (2019) s02e05 – Finger Patrol

I’m not great at tracking the “Doom Patrol” creatives but I remembered Chris Dingess was working out and Shoshana Sachi was one of the good writers, so I had good feeling going into Finger Patrol and it does not disappoint. Maybe the most surprising part is how well things work out for Joivan Wade and Karen Obilom, with Wade… good in the arc? In fact, he carries some of their scenes now. It’s a really fast improvement.

The Wade and Obilom arc starts as Wade and Robotman (Brendan Fraser voicing, Riley Shanahan perambulating) go to visit Wade’s dad Silas Stone (wonderful to see in his first appearance this season) and then Wade decides he’s got to resolve the Obilom situation. Meanwhile Fraser has decided it’s time for them to become a crime-fighting duo, which goes horrifically, comically wrong. Because, of course.

Back at the mansion, Timothy Dalton is positively gleeful daughter Abi Monterey is playing with Diane Guerrero’s child-like personality. It comes right after a truly terrible scene with Guerrero having it out with Dalton about their past; it should be good, it seems to be well-written, and you can see Guerrero… trying… but every time it could connect, it doesn’t.

It’s rough. So rough the obnoxious child personality is a welcome break.

Is it a good idea for Guerrero and Monterey to play given their incredible abilities and inability to control them? Probably not, but Dalton is a terrible father.

Speaking of terrible fathers, this episode seems to be a resolution—for the time being—to the John Getz as Matt Bomer’s son subplot, which has Bomer and April Bowlby (who gets a very good C plot about trying out for community theatre) going to help Getz and the other men in the family clean out a house. Shocking and upsetting revelations abound.

It’s a really good episode with truly distressing finales for most of its arcs; Dingess and Sachi’s structure is phenomenal.

Doom Patrol (2019) s02e04 – Sex Patrol

At some point someone working on “Doom Patrol” decided they weren’t messing around and gave Alan Mingo Jr. a truly devastating speech about transgender people’s humanity—to Joivan Wade—and it’s a wow aside in the episode. Sex Patrol goes all the way from hilarious to terrifying to, well, titillating but when Mingo delivers that monologue… everything else stops (in just the right way).

Mingo is back because Danny the Street is in trouble and they called out to all the for Danizens (Danny the Street is so well done I’m just going with it). Mingo—along with gone since last season but still as scantily clad and wholesome as ever Devan Long—shows up at the mansion, interrupting Timothy Dalton trying to lie to Abi Monterey about things being okay, and get the literal party started.

Monterey, despite being an almost life-long Danizen herself, never got to go to a Danny party and she really wants to stay up for this one, which gives the episode it’s fantastic “Hours til Bedtime” device. So good. Not sure if it was writers Eric Dietel and Tanya Steele who came up with it but it’s perfect.

The episode mostly follows Monterey and her attempts to stay up late without Dalton finding out. Only she’s got a terrifying invisible monster friend who’s telling her she needs to start a lot of real trouble, which leads to a very difficult arc for Monterey. Her casting is really working out for the show.

But while the narrative follows Monterey it’s because the bigger plot line needs to have some surprise value for maximum effect. See, April Bowlby needs a big favor from Long and neither of them really understand the ramifications of him granting her request. But it leads to a fantastic, action-packed finale….

Right before the appropriately terrifying, absolutely heartbreaking cliffhanger. Because it turns out the real plot line of the episode—and the season so far, actually—is how the entire team are bad dads. Except Wade. He’s just on his way toward it. And Bowlby. Though she’s got the bad dad in her too.

The hopeful part is it’s about why they shouldn’t be bad dads. But it also might be too late.

So good. And also frequently hilarious because of the Robotman (Brendan Fraser talks, Riley Shanahan walks) ecstasy subplot.

Not a typo.

Doom Patrol (2019) s02e03 – Pain Patrol

Samira Radsi directs a positively unnerving episode here, doing both social awkwardness in the extremes and then, you know, traditional inter-dimensional evil who was Jack the Ripper—is Red Jack (Roger Floyd, who looks like a cross-between Hellraiser and Stanley Kubrick’s Phantom of the Opera) a Redjac from “Star Trek” reference? Cute. The most likable thing Grant Morrison’s done.

Anyway.

While Timothy Dalton and April Bowlby are trying to rescue Matt Bomer from Floyd—the way the episode picks up from the previous episode’s cliffhanger, which itself had been a C plot throughout, is really smooth. “Doom Patrol: Season Two” has a very nice assuredness about it. This episode’s script—Tamara Becher and Tom Farrell—is excellent as well. Things have come together quite reliably.

Okay, except Diane Guerrero, who has an intervention subplot with the other personas and it’s terrible because the acting is so bad but it’s just the show. Like. It’s worth waiting through the bad for the good.

Enough about her. Well, in a second—she’s on the bus with Cliff the Robotman (Brendan Fraser voicing, Riley Shanahan moving) and Fraser has gone to confront his daughter Bethany Anne Lind. See, the episode opens with Dalton having to tell Fraser to stop swearing in front of Dalton’s daughter, Abi Monterey, which sets Fraser off. Guerrero’s asleep on the bus. Done.

So Fraser’s trying to work up the courage to talk to Lind but doesn’t have Guerrero around to consult and it’s going to turn out he really, really needed to consult someone. It’s an excellent Robotman episode in terms of character development and sort of exploration—yeah; Fraser’s arc this episode is a character study. It’s real good.

Is it as good as the Dalton and Bowlby have to save Bomer, who’s Floyd got hanging over a bunch of people dying from Bomer’s exposed radiation? Maybe? But the action horror movie plotting—interspersed with wholesome (well, eventually) flashbacks to Bowlby and Bomer first becoming friends—really works.

Of course, I haven’t even gotten to Joivan Wade, whose still in Detroit trying to do things on his own. This time it means hooking up with Karen Obilom and discovering she’s full of surprises and secrets. Obilom doesn’t exactly carry the scenes, but she’s good enough—even when Wade’s faltering—the scenes get through. Though the timeline on Wade is really confusing at this point as far as his initial recovery and time superheroing.

There’s even a Nick Cave song at the end. It’s all so good.

Doom Patrol (2019) s02e02 – Tyme Patrol

Tyme Patrol is packed; writers April Fitzsimmons and Neil Reynolds make the subplots seem just as big as the main one, which has the team trying to steal some time travel goo from an infamous time traveller (the titular Tyme, voiced by Dan Martin while Brandon Perea handles the, um, roller-disco). He ends up having a surprisingly affecting subplot with April Bowlby, who gets her first great material this episode as she has to take over the team with Robotman (Brendan Fraser, who’s good this episode, voicing and Riley Shanahan moving) no longer wanting to play the part. Also because Joivan Wade has run off.

Doom Patrol (2019) s02e01 – Fun Size Patrol

“Doom Patrol” starts off answering the outstanding question—who is Chief Timothy Dalton’s daughter? Her name’s Dorothy, which could be perfect but I don’t want to get ahead of myself hopefulness-wise with the character. She’s half-twentieth century human, half-20,000 century BCE human. Abi Monterey—who’s not in the opening title credit roll—plays the part, in makeup a little bit less than, say, Kim Hunter in the original Planet of the Apes.

Oh. Right. The episode opens with Monterey in a cage in a 1927 London circus with the ringmaster taunting her as an “ape girl” and torturing her conjured reindeer-bear monster. Then the bigger monsters come out. We don’t get to see them unfortunately, but we do get to see Dalton and Monterey reunite.

Fast forward ninety years and she’s still basically a tween. A young, energetic one.

Except the team is all in a bad mood because they’re still tiny from last season finale—they’re living in a campground on the miniature train table—though it’s for racing electric cars because it’s TV and electric cars work on TV–and Monterey exhausts them. Well, most of them.

Monterey gets along with April Bowlby for the most part, but she’s more drawn to Diane Guerrero and Robotman (Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan, who I wasn’t sure was back the movement’s so different). And Guerrero and Fraser have no time for Monterey. They’re both mad about Dalton experimenting on them. No one’s particularly happy about it but Bowlby and Matt Bomer are a little more laissez-faire, presumably because they’re older.

Meanwhile, Joivan Wade just wants to be big again so he can leave. Bowlby wants him to stay—and wants him to train her to be a superhero—but Wade’s not buying it. Even though Wade’s not quite good enough, the show’s use of him as the “traditional” superhero works out and his relationship with Bowlby always has great energy.

Good script from Jeremy Carver and Shoshana Sachi; it’s a good refresh on the cast after the season finale and nice setup for the second season, with some forecasting on the upcoming perils.

Really good Timothy Dalton. Guerrero’s… not better. Monterey seems to be a good addition. Excellent music from Clint Mansell and Kevin Kiner. Though the special effects seem off.

Oh, and Mark Sheppard is better than last time with his cameo here. He’s not a goof anymore.

Sadly Fraser’s in-person flashback cameo is probably his worst work on the show so far, like his experience voicing Robotman has led to him later making bad acting decisions.

But it’s a good episode and a successful launch for the season.

The Call (2020, Lee Chung-hyun)

It’s unclear for a while but what The Call needs more than anything else is a great villain. It’s got its villains, starting with very bad mom Lee El, but she’s not great. She’s kind of one note too, with writer and director Lee cutting away from her when she’s going to be establishing the most character. The Call tries very hard to avoid getting too much into character development because it’s eventually going to be a thriller. It doesn’t start a thriller, it starts a weird mix of comedy, drama, and sci-fi, but it’s eventually going to shave off the laughs and dramatics and just be the thrills with sci-fi trappings.

As a director, Lee can do all the film’s tones—whether it’s Park Shin-hye and new friend Jun Jong-seo bonding over music and small talk or Jun getting temporary freedom (she’s got the very bad mom in Lee El) and going off to have a fun day trip to Seoul from she and Park’s more rural town. He can also do the harrowing thrills as Park’s mom, Kim Sung-ryung tries to escape a dangerous situation she’s found herself in without knowing. The last third of The Call isn’t real time, but it often feels like it, as we’re just watching Park wait for the next bad thing to happen.

Actually, we’re waiting for Park to get the next call. The Call‘s always all about the next time the phone rings.

The film starts with Park getting home to check on mom Kim as she heads into surgery. She’s staying alone in their big house and she’s left her phone on the train. She digs out an old landline portable phone and after the bad samaritan who found her phone trying to shake her down—which seems like it’s going to be a bigger subplot than it turns out to be—she gets a wrong number call from Jun. Jun’s terrified of mom Lee El, trying to get ahold of local shop-owning pal Jo Kyung-sook but gets Park instead.

It takes a while for the friendship to develop—initially juxtaposed with Park and Kim, then Park alone in the house and discovering some mysteries—but eventually they get to be phone buddies.

And the way Lee’s script leverages some obvious discussion topics, it should’ve been clear he wasn’t going anywhere with anything like character development. Especially after the supporting cast expands to include Park Ho-san, who’s got plenty of presence, but absolutely no character. Same goes for Oh Jeong-se as the neighborhood strawberry farmer, who’s friends with Park and has the potential for an interesting relationship with Jun, but it needs to be a thriller and so Lee rushes quite a bit, racing to the third act.

The Call’s third act, which is all about its twists and turns—in fact, so’s the shrug of an epilogue—is perfectly solid thriller stuff and the characters are incredibly sympathetic, but they’re only sympathetic because of the exceptional, insurmountable dangers they face. Not to mention child in danger stuff. Big time child in danger stuff. And Lee seems to know it’s too much and visually avoids it while doing all sorts of implying.

Most of the film’s action takes place at Park’s house. For a while it seems like a budgetary constraint, but then Lee takes the action to Seoul with Jun but then opens things up more with Park getting out too. Despite it being an effective thriller, Lee’s direction is best when it’s not playing thriller. There are so many constraints on the thriller stuff, which is all very intricately plotted, Lee just figuring out how to play the audience not tell a story.

The Call’s better when it’s got a story to tell and not just a puzzle to solve.

Park’s fine; she’s very sympathetic. Jun starts better than she finishes; the movie stops asking her to do different things and instead the same thing over and over just with different clothing choices and accessories. Kim’s good. Lee El’s fine. She’s kind of one note but it’s the part.

There are some questionable music choices but they’re intentionally going for a late nineties vibe at times so it’s not inappropriate just not great. Lee’s choices all make sense, they just could be better while still making sense.

The Call’s an effective, inventive—though maybe not imaginative—thriller.

Though the epilogue is pointlessly too much. It’s kind of a cop out, showing how easy it is to manipulate expectations but without any actual payoff because the movie’s over.

But, again, The Call definitely engages as it plays.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s02e16 – At the Mountains of Madness

I got really hopeful when I saw the title, At the Mountains of Madness, because they mentioned the Mountains of Madness in a previous episode and it’s the Lovecraft story with monster dinosaurs and so… monster dinosaurs are probably going to be cool.

There are no monster dinosaurs in the episode. There are the Mountains of Madness but they’re pretty boring and during the worst part of the episode, when the action leaps ahead two weeks and we lose Kiernan Shipka as lead of her, you know, own show. She has to go the Mountains because she’s become a danger to herself and others, but mostly others. See, she tries to take on the last Eldritch Terror herself because she’s feeling guilty about bringing about the end of the universe.

Things do not go well.

It even messes up Shipka’s seventeenth birthday party, which should be a book end to the series but isn’t really important. Not much in the episode works out being important, including Michelle Gomez’s resolution with Luke Cook. Gomez—in her Earthly variation—narrates the episode from a pulpit, where it quickly becomes clear she’s narrating in the past tense, making some of her statements all the more ominous.

Trying to help Shipka, the witches get into shenanigans to piss off Cook and the rest of Hell, leading to an utterly disappointing big fight scene. More risible than disappointing, especially since Sam Corlett makes a big deal out of the soldiers he can muster for Cook’s cause and then they’re… well, no spoilers, but it’s a pretty weak army and seemingly only there to gin up some more angst for Shipka and the supporting cast.

The finale goes on way too long—with one heck of an epilogue—but some nice homage to the original comic series and a few resolves for the supporting cast. Not most of them. Ninety percent of the supporting cast get no closure in the final episode, though since the show hasn’t given any of them significant subplots for the season it doesn’t really matter. They’ve all just been hanging around waiting for the show to finish apparently. Episode writer—and show creator and original comic (Chilling Adventures comic not, you know, in sixties Archie Comics) creator—Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa really doesn’t come up much for the finale.

It’s not the worst, but the episode is rushed, wastes everyone—including Coyle, who gets an unexpected big role—and doesn’t even provide a good finish for the Eldritch Terror storyline. My impulse was to blame it on Netflix, like maybe they cut the season order (before cancelling the show all together) but maybe Aguirre-Sacasa really just didn’t have it.

Rest of the show’s pretty good if not better. And, I guess at least there’s not one of the bad musical numbers.

But it’s a definite miss.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s02e15 – The Endless

The Endless is the best episode of the season so far and one of the best showcases for Kiernan Shipka as an actor ever. She’s trapped in another alternate universe, only this one is where she’s an actor on a television show, seemingly “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” She quickly discovers this alternate universe doesn’t have any magic, which is going to make things a lot more difficult, and none of her new costars believe her.

Shipka’s playing the Hell version of Sabrina—Morningstar—which doesn’t matter once she’s in this alternate universe because Hell doesn’t exist since it’s television. Albeit a television show where everyone lives on set and then wakes up to a new script on their nightstand and act all day long. It’s a follow-up to the cliffhanger a couple episodes ago, where Shipka finds herself in a world where Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea play her aunts. Broderick and Rhea played on the previous “Sabrina” show, “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.” The now Christian Nationalist star of that show, Melissa Joan Hart, does not cameo.

The episode gives the entire cast—save maybe Gavin Leatherwood, Jaz Sinclair, definitely Lachlan Watson, oh, and Michelle Gomez—well… okay. It gives Shipka, Ross Lynch, Miranda Otto, Lucy Davis, Chance Perdomo, and especially Sam Corlett some great scenes. Turns out they’d just given Corlett more comedy, he might’ve done better in the show in general and Shipka’s Hellish variation’s affection for him would make sense.

So Shipka has various mysteries to solve—what’s the green room (where you go after being fired), how’s the head writer on the show, and why are her new aunties Broderick and Rhea so low-key creepy at times—only she doesn’t feel capable because she’s not the regular Sabrina. There’s character development and gravitas and drama and action and lots of comedy. The show manages to maintain the combination of fun and ominous until the last act of the episode, when the reveals come very fast. It’s not so much a rush as an escape, but Shipka’s acting keeps it going. She’s absolutely fantastic this episode.

Great episode. More than makes up for the previous one’s messiness.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s02e14 – The Returned

I’ve really liked co-writer Oanh Ly’s episodes in the past, so The Returned being such a mess is a bummer. Even if it weren’t for the problematic resolve to Miranda Otto’s love affair with visiting witch Skye P. Marshall—who gets a big spotlight this episode to have it torn away twice—or how Lachlan Watson’s Romeo and Romeo star-crossed thing with Jonathan Whitesell gets shrugged off after a single episode because the show can’t figure out anything to do with Watson who’s been a regular since episode one, there’s so many narrative backtracks it’s hard to keep track. Not to mention the whole point of the episode is to bring back dead characters in order to give living cast members performatively cathartic outbursts.

Not to mention poor Michelle Gomez; turns out the writers have no surprises for her, just more obvious, wrenching tragedy. It’s a complete waste of Gomez (whose Earthly version is background for already background Richard Coyle) and seems like unnecessary filler. I wonder at what point “Sabrina” knew they weren’t getting another season from Netflix because I was under the impression these episodes were long in the can before Netflix officially canceled them. It might explain some of the mess. I hope it explains some of the mess.

So the episode opens with Kiernan Shipka trying to adjust to her latest new normal—including rekindled beau Gavin Leatherwood—and supporting her human friends as they get ready for a “Battle of the Bands” at the high school. Someone directly asks Shipka if she’ll be participating and she says no, which is important later because apparently she just didn’t want to play with those friends and because “Sabrina” needed to have a three song “Battle of the Bands” scene. One of the bands is back from the dead—which turns out to be Marshall’s plot, playing a board game against Eldritch Terror Oliver Rice—and has history with Ross Lynch’s dad, Christopher Rosamond.

But this band isn’t the only resurrected, there’s also previous series regular Abigail Cowen, back to give some closure to Tati Gabrielle and Adeline Rudolph, but also Christine Willes as Alessandro Juliani’s mother who has it in for Lucy Davis because she’s married to her little boy, not to mention the profoundly pointless Georgie Daburas as Shipka’s long dead dad. It’s a nothing finish for a character arc I think Shipka started the series with.

The episode’s so cheap it falls back on dogs being cute to get it through. It’s a rather desperate outing, with every one of its plots failing to resolve adequately, not to utterly wasting the cast’s time.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s02e13 – Deus Ex Machina

Four episodes until the finish and “Chilling Adventures” is still bringing in new worlds—in this case, the Parliament of Worlds in Celestial Realm, where Metatron (Pollyanna McIntosh is fine but would you really recast Hans Gruber) is witnessing a crisis unfolding. Hell and Earth are having dimension-quakes because of Kiernan Shipka splitting into two, one for Hell, one for Earth. Also somehow involved is the latest Eldritch Terror, the Cosmic, which is creating duplicate realities on a collision course for the already on a collision course Earth and Hell (and Heaven).

It’s such a big bad event, Shipka’s willing to tell aunts Lucy Davis and Miranda Otto how she created a time duplicate of herself and they’ve been coexisting all season. Some solid Parent Trap jokes, some not so solid Parent Trap jokes. But everything’s incredibly dramatic because McIntosh seems Heaven-bent on killing one of the Sabrinas to save reality even though it might not really save reality.

Meanwhile, Lachlan Watson gets a really bad subplot—undercooked and wrong ingredients and so on—with boyfriend Jonathan Whitesell. Whitesell’s fellow hobgoblin, Natalie Grace, has come to Earth to bring Whitesell back into the Fairie Realm in order to save him from the ends of the worlds except… it’s unclear why the Fairie Realm would survive.

Far more effective and harrowing is Michelle Gomez’s subplot about baby daddy Lucifer (Luke Cook) tracking her down in order to figure out what’s going on with his newborn son. Gomez earlier told Davis she was planning on hiding in the witch academy until the kid turned sixteen—Gomez and Davis are so good together—but it doesn’t seem like Cook’s going to agree.

The episode’s got one good arc for two Sabrinas, which adds up to Shipka’s best acting in a while on the show… alongside some of her more rote acting as her Earthy variation finds herself rekindling a romance with Gavin Leatherwood with only a few hours before the ends of the worlds. Shipka has a lot more fun as the Hell variant and that Sabrina gets a far better arc throughout.

But it’s a strong episode. Good performances from Cook–he’s a lot better this season, with the show treating him as a somewhat docile sardonic relief—Otto, Chance Perdomo obviously.

And the cliffhanger’s excellent.